Census Bureau to Wrap Up Count Early and Will Meet Trump’s Order to Exclude Undocumented Migrants

The Census Bureau will finish collecting data next month so it can deliver population tallies to President Donald Trump by the end of the year, and will meet his order to exclude undocumented immigrants. In a statement late Monday reported by Politico, Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham announced measures intended “to accelerate the completion of data collection and apportionment counts” by Dec. 31 and will stop “field data collection” by Sept. 30. Dillingham also said the bureau “continues its work on meeting the requirements” of Trump’s order to calculate the number of congressional seats each state will have in the next decade without taking undocumented immigrants into account. Census results are used to calculate federal funding and evaluate the number of seats each state has in the House of Representatives, and the exclusion of undocumented migrants will likely help Republicans in future elections. But it’s unclear how they can be excluded, as the Census questionnaires were distributed back in March without a citizenship question.